


You Keep Me from Sleeping

by bertie456 (bertee)



Series: Bones: You're Lovely to Me [26]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertie456





	You Keep Me from Sleeping

**11.31pm**

 _Parker. Little league. Baseball. Bases. Sex. Bones._

 _Weather. Storms. Rain. Wet. Sex. Bones._

 _DIY. Hammers. Nails. Pounding. Sex. Bones._

Sighing quietly in order not to wake his partner, Booth clenched his fists as he lay on his back, wishing he wasn't quite so good at _Six Degrees of Sex with Bones_. Closing his eyes, he let his breathing even out, trying not to inhale the scent of the woman next to him and trying to direct his current Boy Scout impression away from the pitching of tents.

However, every time his eyelids drifted shut, all he saw was the image of Brennan leaning innocently against the bathroom door, trying to persuade him to give up his favored left side of the bed for her. Or, at least, that's what he thought she was trying to persuade him to do. As far as he was concerned, she could've talked him into signing away his soul since his attention was entirely focused on the lilac, silky negligee which she just happened to be wearing at the time and which just happened to cling delicately to the soft curves of her breasts, leaving both everything and nothing to the imagination.

Contradiction or not, Booth's imagination was not about to refuse a challenge, and had spent the last twenty minutes in blissful contemplation while the rest of his mind tried in vain to hold back the barrage of unpartnerlike thoughts, a task akin to holding back a charging elephant with party streamers.

 _Think non-erotic thoughts,_ prompted the part of his mind which currently subscribed to the"Let's State the Obvious" school of thought. _She's your partner. She's sleeping peacefully in your bed. She's probably not aware that you are mentally ogling her. She'd definitely kick your ass if she was aware._

Wondering briefly if it was even possible to 'ogle' someone when you had your eyes shut, Booth forced his upper body to relax against the mattress, hoping his lower body would follow suit, and began the time-honored tradition of counting sheep-kangaroo hybrids who seemed to leap happily over an imaginary gate.

 _One sheep, no sex with Bones. Two sheep, no sex with Bones. Three sheep, no sex with Bones..._

 **12.10am**

 _"We thank you oh-so-sweetly..."_

Snore.

 _"For doing it so neatly..."_

Snore.

 _"You killed her so completely..."_

Snore.

 _"That we thank you oh-so-"_

Before the small army of dream-munchkins could finish their song, their particular version of Dorothy felt herself being dragged back to reality by a truly colossal snore from beside her. Blinking away the images of ruby slippers, flattened witches and musically-inclined little people which had been haunting her ever since Angela had forced her to sit down and "appreciate American culture", Brennan rolled over and looked at her partner in annoyance.

Evidently unaware of her judgmental glare, the noise continued unabated, with Booth seemingly intent on rousing the dead with the sheer ferocity of his snores. The thought of waking him up gently and asking him politely not to snore was quickly dismissed by Brennan's tired and grouchy mind, which instead prompted her to lean over and pinch his nose shut with calculated ruthlessness.

His next breath in was met with an obstruction and she couldn't hide the smirk on her face as he woke with a jerk, gasping for breath as she removed her hand. The smirk vanished upon seeing his uncharacteristically vulnerable expression as he looked at her in confusion, like a child whose candy had just been snatched and stamped on by a school-yard bully. Not enjoying the feeling of guilt, she defended herself half-heartedly, "You were snoring."

He blinked at her before saying with contrition, "I'm sorry. I just... I was sleeping on my back so I didn't get too close to your side of the bed."

The kicked-puppy look on his face quickly superseded her previous irritation, and indeed, her previous common sense, as she relented, "Just sleep how you want, Booth. We're adults, I'm sure we can manage to comfortably share a two-person bed."

"Are you sure? Because I don't want you to feel-"

"It's fine," she reiterated tiredly. "Now go to sleep." _And stop looking at me like I just ran over your pet._

Booth didn't need any more persuasion and shifted gladly onto his side, closing his eyes and saying drowsily, "Night, Bones."

"Night, Booth," she replied out of habit, turning away from him and letting the soft pillow welcome her back to Munchkinland.

 **1.24am**

 _Is it wrong that I'm enjoying this?_

Staring ahead of her at the mahogany dresser that flanked Booth's bedroom wall, Brennan shifted backward slightly, enjoying the feel of his warm body pressed against hers. Apparently Booth had lied earlier when she asked him whether he snuggled in bed since, upon being given permission to sleep how he wanted, he had slowly but surely maneuvered his way across the bed and was now snuggling like a champion.

 _It's not wrong,_ Brennan told herself optimistically. _Humans crave warmth, and Booth just happens to be very warm. It's simply a matter of comfort; there is nothing sexual in this type of bodily contact, and therefore it's perfectly alright for me to be enjoying it._

However, a sleepy squeeze from Booth reminded her exactly why she was enjoying this so much.

After three years of working together, Brennan and a fully-conscious Booth had only ever made it to first base, and only then with the help of a shrub, some festive spirit, and an oddly voyeuristic lawyer. Semi-conscious Booth was a different matter though, given that he was already rounding second after a little over two hours.

Another possessive squeeze drew Brennan's attention back to the matter that was quite literally in hand, and she couldn't stop herself settling back against her partner, his arm around her body and his hand cupping her breast firmly. Sighing, Temperance's eyes glazed over in sleepy contentment as his hand moved against the silk of her nightdress, her nipple achingly tight in the join between his thumb and index finger as he played with it unknowingly.

 _He doesn't even know what he's doing,_ she reminded herself sternly. _It's like I'm taking advantage of him, which is practically sexual assault._ She swallowed hard at the sensation of another squeeze and Booth's lower body pressing closer to hers. _Okay, this definitely isn't assault-like. It's just sexual assault without the assault, which would be-_

 _Oh._

 _Is it wrong that I'm enjoying this?_

 **2.03am**

 _Ow..._

Feeling a sharp sensation of pain in his feet, Booth snapped awake quickly, memories of both nightmares and events he wished were nightmares submerging his brain in fear. Disoriented, he froze for a few seconds as he struggled to regain his bearings, before eventually realising that he was in the safe and familiar surroundings of his bedroom. When his breathing evened out and his heart stopped hammering in his ears, he wiggled his feet, trying to reassure himself that it was simply a phantom pain.

This reassurance didn't come, the soft flesh of his foot meeting instead with the strangely pointy toenails of a certain forensic anthropologist. Frowning, Booth moved to turn over, only to roll straight into Brennan's fist, which rested in the center of his pillow. Whimpering to himself, Booth stumbled out of the bed to assess the situation and quickly deduced three things.

One: His partner, for some reason unknown to him, had given up her treasured left side of the bed, and moved round to sleep on the right of him.

Two: She clearly thought a starfish was an excellent role model for sleeping positions.

Three: As a result of this face-down, starfish-inspired sprawl, there was no way in hell that he would be able to get in his own bed.

When it had made these observations, and instead of concocting a cunning plan to reclaim his bed, Booth's mind was distracted by an entirely different realisation.

 _Holy mother of God, it's cold._

Wrapping his bare arms around his wifebeater-clad torso, Booth shifted to let the bottoms of his sweatpants fall over his toes in order to keep him from losing them to frostbite in the duvet-free coldness of his bedroom. Bitterly, he glared at his warm, slumbering partner, trying to decide whether the 'warm' or the 'slumbering' part of that description annoyed him more.

 _How is this fair? She's evicted me from my own bed._

The optimistic part of his brain, which sounded remarkably like his mother after a glass of scotch, answered cheerfully, _Yes, but if she wasn't here, you'd be sleeping in the nude. At least you've got pajamas to keep you warm while you're standing here._

This rationale was quickly quashed by the more logical part of his brain, which this time took on the voice of the bed-usurperess in question, _If she hadn't commandeered your bed, you wouldn't be standing here in the first place. You'd be warm, asleep and happily naked._

Feeling confused, chilly and mildly schizophrenic, Booth moved quickly round to the right side of the bed, figuring his partner would be more likely to roll to the coveted left side if given the chance. Sending up a brief prayer that his duvet-reclamation plan would be a success, he then gripped the edge of the covers and lifted them slightly so that Brennan's foot and hand were exposed to the cold air.

Like a tortoise retreating into its shell, she instinctively moved her extremities back under the warmth of the covers and a triumphant grin spread across Booth's face. _Ha! You see that there, Bones? That's what's called a plan._

Flushed with success, he continued to slowly lift the blankets until the anthropologist's splayed limbs had returned to her own side, leaving Booth enough space to get into his own bed.

However, just as the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to inappropriate peeking is paved with the desire for warmth.

As he lifted up the covers, Booth couldn't help but catch a glimpse of the creamy skin of his partner's upper thigh, her negligee riding up to rest just below the curve of her ass. Before his mind could register that no, this was not one of his admittedly many and varied fantasies, he'd lifted his arms again, exposing her ass fully to the cold air and giving him a perfect view of her slightly spread legs and silk-draped behind.

She shifted at the feel of the cool air wafting under the raised duvet, and Booth, in the words of the song his partner had happily sung along to on the way from work, promptly dropped it like it was hot, before slipping under it himself and mentally slapping himself for being so opportunistically lecherous.

 _I was sleepy. I didn't know what I was doing. It was an accident. I would never intentionally take advantage of a sleeping Bones in that way, even if her body did look amazing in that slinky, silky-_

 _I'm going to hell._

 **2.57am**

 _I'm going crazy._

Feeling the familiar warmth of Booth's body pressed up behind her, and his arm draped in a snuggly yet possessive fashion over her stomach, Temperance woke up to a severe case of deja vu.

 _I've dealt with this already,_ she thought, annoyed. _I got out of bed, got really cold, but moved round to the other side so neither of us would be taking advantages of any kind. This is like Warthog day._ She paused in contemplation. _Do I mean Warthog?_ She gave a mental shrug. _Sounds as plausible as any other kind of hog._

Sighing, she lay still for a moment, listening to her partner's peaceful breathing and feeling gooseflesh prickle her neck as his breath caressed her skin. His hand rested comfortably on her lower belly, and she let her head sink back into the fluffy depths of the pillow, deciding that as long as there was no intimate touching of any kind, snuggling was condoned by Temperance Brennan's Rules of Partnerlike Behavior.

However, as though rebelling at the mere psychic mention of a rule, Booth's hand shifted downward, his arm resting just below her hips and his fingers settling contentedly in the warm groove between her thighs.

 _Not good..._

Booth's heat-seeking fingers were apparently pleased by the new source of warmth and nestled further between her thighs, causing Brennan to bite back a surprised but happy yelp as he rubbed against the front of her panties.

 _Okay, good in the physical sense, but definitely not good in the moral sense. I really should move..._

Her body, deciding that her brain spent a lot of its time being overly literal, did indeed move. Backward. Toward Booth and his inadvertently wandering hands.

 _Away. Move away, _ her mind instructed again, somewhat lacking in conviction as Brennan couldn't help but enjoy the pressure exerted by his fingers. _Away! If you really thought this was right, you'd be doing it while he was awake._

Conceding reluctantly to her overly-smug conscience, Temperance eased herself out of Booth's arms before turning round to face him and debating the merits of vaulting over her partner as opposed to venturing out of the duvet into the frozen wastes for the second time that night. Remembering the flimsy, thermally-challenged nature of her attire, the choice quickly changed to a single possible course of action and she looked at Booth with the same steely determination as someone facing Mt Everest.

 _Now, what's the best way to do this?_

Realising that all options involved mounting her partner in one way or another, Brennan decided to employ the "Do it fast and hope he doesn't notice" method of scaling Mt Booth. Rolling onto her stomach, she raised herself up on her left elbow and knee, carefully lowering her right hand and foot down to the mattress on the other side of Booth until she was on her hands and knees. Straddling Booth. In his bed.

This realisation became too much for her, and she hurriedly lifted her other limbs over, not wanting to explain to an awoken Booth that she was on top of him as a direct result of his fingers traveling somewhere south of her hips.

However, her co-ordination at 3am left much to be desired, and her leg caught Booth's hip on the way over, rolling him onto his back while she collapsed on top of him, half her body on his and half on the intended target of the mattress.

 _Think of a reason, think of a reason, think of a-_

Snore.

 _He's still asleep?_

Snore.

 _He's still asleep?_

Snore.

 _And he's snoring..._

Grateful that she didn't have to give a full and complete account of the Mt Booth expedition, Temperance just let her head drop onto her partner's shoulder, too tired to deal with the snoring issue at present. Curling contentedly against his side, she felt her eyes drifting shut as she was lulled to sleep by the slow rise and fall of her muscular pillow.

Just before she dropped off to sleep, a small smile flickered over her lips as she realised that, even when sharing a bed, their partnership was just the same as ever. In the course of one night, they had argued, bickered, waged small wars over territory and indulged in some unpartnerlike, but undeniably enjoyable, intimacy, before finally settling on a happy medium regarding their sleeping arrangements. Satisfied with the conclusion, she relaxed fully in Booth's arms, her brain making one final observation before switching off for the night.

 _I could get used to this._


End file.
